EzBTC.ca – ezBTC Review of Canadian Crypto Exchange

Back in May 2017 when I started looking into cryptocurrencies and investing in Bitcoin, once I had finally decided to pull the trigger and invest, I went on a mad rush to find an exchange. Prices were going up and since I had decided I wanted in, every day I waited was a potential loss of profit.

My requirements for a crypto exchange was one that would a) approve my application and b) allow me to deposit some funds quickly and cheaply. Living in Canada, another important factor was the ability to fund the account in CDN dollars to avoid having to first exchange to US dollars before funding the account.

Another thing that attracted me to ezBTC is that they accept interac e-transfers to fund your account, with no fees for the deposit.

If you’re ready to sign up, I’d really appreciate it if you followed this link, it doesn’t cost you anything extra, and I earn a small commission. Sign up on ezBTC.ca now See the March 2019 update at the bottom of the page. I’m no longer recommending people try this exchange

Once bitcoin is purchased, For withdrawals, there is a .0005BTC fee.

I signed up, received a confirmation email, and was on my way in a matter of minutes. The second step of the registration was to provide ID confirmation, and that process took less than a day – super fast!

I was also able to e-transfer funds and buy bitcoin – all in all a good experience.

Then, however, came the Bitcoin hard fork – remember the nerd wars back in June and July 2017 that led to the developers splitting and resulting in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash? Leading up to it, I knew I had to move my BTC off of exchanges that weren’t going to support it. In fact, I received about 6 different emails from Coinbase.com

The first emails from Coinbase were saying “move your Bitcoin, we aren’t going to support Bitcoin Cash so if you want it you’ll have to move your Bitcoin somewhere else before the split”. So, I quickly transferred my BTC. The last few emails from CoinBase changed to “Actually, we will support Bitcoin Cash so you can leave your Bitcoin with us”…. I moved too quick 🙂

I had been so happy with ezBTC, I went to their site to see what they said about Bitcoin Cash and the upcoming hard fork. I found an official message saying something to the effect of “During the fork we will work in our clients best interest.” (I don’t have the exact wording, it was a temporary message only visible to logged in users and it isn’t there anymore). Alright, sounds good, so I transferred my BTC to ezBTC.

After the split, I waited a while, logged in, and didn’t see any notices or mention about the fork at all. All I noticed was a comment in the chat box that said “Last time I leave my BTC on an exchange during a hard fork. Too bad I won’t get any Bitcoin Cash”. WHAT? I thought “This can’t be!”

I responded to the chat, didn’t receive any direct contact from ezBTC, and only others who responded and said “You should’ve pulled your BTC out it’s your own fault.”

In hind sight, perhaps it was partially my fault – my fault for thinking that ezBTC saying “client’s best interest” meant that I’d receive the Bitcoin Cash. Apparently, for ezBTC.ca, their client’s best interest is having them keep the hundreds of dollars of Bitcoin Cash for themselves?!

I’m not sure what to do going forward. There aren’t lots of BTC exchanges in Canada, but CoinBase supports Canadian customers, and they sure are up front and intentional about their communication.

Could they fix it? Sure – they could send me the Bitcoin Cash, they could tell me with a straight face they didn’t claim it and never will, they could offer me transaction fee discounts to try and make things right, heck, they could’ve even sent me an email to explain why they think it was all my fault.

Lesson learned – the hard way – the way that cost me hundreds in lost Bitcoin Cash.

November 2017 Update: I’m still using ezBTC.ca In Canada, we are really limited to options for selling BTC for cash, and ezBTC is the easiest way to do this. If you’re ready to sign up, I’d really appreciate it if you followed this link, it doesn’t cost you anything extra, and I earn a small commission. Sign up on ezBTC.ca now See below:

January 2019 Update:

In the wake of the QuadrigaCX stuff, the slow withdrawals on ezBTC really has people panicking. I had some withdrawals that took a few months, but they came through. Sure, ezBTC may be slow, or they may be overwhelmed etc, but it’s a poorly run scam if the CEO keeps showing up to chat, talk with people, and get some things done. I think it’s just a young company with growing pains. I wish they would be more transparent about hot wallets and withdrawal times etc, but I eventually got everything I was owed.

March 2019 Update:

Although I eventually received all of my funds off the exchange, it looks like there are others who still haven’t, and who are still involved in lawsuits or cat-and-mouse conversations. I don’t recommend anyone put money onto this exchange now.

Reddit post: I’m a developer who recently worked with ezbtc. Please don’t lose your money in this “exchange”. They’re paying out withdrawals with deposits. As long as there are more deposits than withdrawals than you’ll be fine but if it’s the other way around nobody will get their money out. That’s why there’s numerous lawsuits from people who haven’t gotten their money for eight months.

24 thoughts on “EzBTC.ca – ezBTC Review of Canadian Crypto Exchange”

Hi Matt thanks for the comment – I noticed communication was clearer through the last fork – as the price of BCH rises, however, the sting from the first fork increases. Did you guys redeem BCH for all the client’s BTC you held during that fork? Have you considered crediting it to customers in an act of good faith?

EZBTC are lying scammer scumbags. I saw the same message assuring that customers would receive BCH after the fork. Then they deleted the message and kept the BCH for themselves. Should be in jail as far as I’m concerned.

EZBTC said that they posted a notice a week the funding method will be changed “Free to 1.5%” by 10th of December.

The funding method, I choosed to transfer was “Instant” and “Free” on 9th of December on their site, when I transfered fince, %3000 on the 9the of December.

With unknown reason, EZBTC took two days and accepted on 11th of December charging on my transfer 1.5%. Only $2955 transfered into my account and EZBTC takes $45 transfer fee.

I would understand this issue if the fund sent by 10th of December. However, I sent the money on 9th of December, indicated “Instant” and “Free”. They accepted the fund on 11th of December charging 1.5% of transfer to extort dollars.

They never changed the Funding methods page until 11 of December means that it is “Free” and
“Instant”

They changed the page “Free” to 1.5%. 12 of December.

They answered to me “the announcement up on the front page that as of Dec 10 – EMT deposits would have a 1.5% fee”

!!! Exmple to better understand !!!
You went to a Cineplex to watch “Star Wars”. You saw a ticket for $10 on ticketing board. However, they charged you a ticket for $15.

You asked them to refund $5.
The Cineplex ansered to you. ” We have had the announcement up on the front door ticket price would have $15.
If your ticket was bought on Dec or before, we can credit you back the $5.”

They know they never changed “The Public Page”, everyone can see but posted little note, barely able to see.

I was curious if you ever considered changing the structure
of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.

But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 pictures which would help this cryptocurrency exchange review.

Terrific article! That is the kind of info that are meant to be shared around the internet.
Shame on the seek engines for no longer positioning this post higher!
Come on over and seek advice from my website . Thank you =)

As of today, 25/July2018, EZBTC.CA the Canadian crypto exchange is on the bust, it has no operational money.

The 3 staff members in the Toronto office have quit 4 weeks ago because of 4 weeks lack of pay. There are no staff left in the Toronto office, the Toronto office is closed. The landlord for EZBTC is seeking rental areas for 1 month.

Clients that have requested for fund withdrawals through electronic fund transfers in last month have not yet received their money, because their money was used to prop up new clients buying crypto.

Some of the Clients who received their fund withdrawal of over $2000 by cheaque in the last 1 week have had their cheaques bounced.

CEO Dave Smiley has said that he fired all Toronto and Vancouver staff for incompetency, but the staff are saying that Dave is a reckless drunkard with drug substance abuse with a gambling streak.

They say that Dave has squandered money for clients that dunded their accounts through email money transfer and trhough bank wire transfers. The only clients left with money are the ones funded their accounts through cryptos.

Basically Dave is borrowing from peter to pay paul in last dith effort to stay affloat.

The vancouver Office only has three staff members, for which Dave and his brother are the other two.

Try calling through to EZBTC even 4 times a day for 5 days every day and see if your call will get returned.

I hope you will do the honorable thing to investigate it and warn people who will potentially lose money and create a lack of confidence in the history of canadian crypto

Sorry, most of your post is here-say? Not much for evidence backing it. Yes, I do know there’s been a bunch of withdrawal issues, and I haven’t withdrawn to CDN. I have done lots of CDN transfers into ezBTC, bought BTC, and transferred out, all without issue. My main issue was when I didn’t receive my BTCash during that hard fork. Everything else I’ve done with them has been fairly quick and painless…. I wonder what all the withdrawal issues are caused by? Canadian regulations? Or lack of funds actually? If they are actually buying BTC when people send them money to buy, and selling when people tell them to sell, it’s other peoples money. Why wouldn’t they always be able to cash someone out?

I am trying to get my money back from ezbtc already 3 months, unsuccessfully. This is 100% criminal company. The big surprise is that if you google it, almost everything looks good about them, except https://www.facebook.com/ezbtc/ where I found out that there are people experiencing exactly the same problem like me. In a span of 3 months I tried first to get my money by EFT – after about 45 days the money came and a day after there was a reversal transaction so they were gone. Then I requested to get it by cheque – pending for another month and a half until I found the link with people reporting the same problem. Then yesterday I canceled the pending cheque and exchanged the CAD for some BTC trying to get something out of that, well, BTC price at CoinMarketCap was around $6,300 CAD and ezbtc exchange rate was $8,800. Immediately I tried to send the BTC to my Binance account and guess what – the transaction is pending again already a day, I don’t even think that ezbtc is sending the BTC, it is just showing “pending” status.
Before all this I got $10,000 out of ezbtc, I guess I was really lucky, but to get the rest of my money out it will take much more then requesting it in their website. If anyone is experiencing the same then please put a comment here so we can try to find a way out.

I made two BTC withdrawal requests for over 2+ BTC combined. They took SEVENTEEN DAYS to pay me 1 BTC. And they still owe me another 1 BTC and I haven’t received anything in 4 weeks (27 days). SCAM. THEY ARE NOT SOLVENT. If they don’t have the crypto to pay you after well over a month, they don’t have the money. They embezzled client deposits for sure.
Proof that I have not got paid in fullhttps://i.imgur.com/btL9TCG.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/h8VSLKP.png
Proof that ezBtc CEO David Smillie is a gambling degenerate. Former co-owner Ron has also went public about David’s drug addiction as well. Says he is embezzling client deposits on drugs and gambling.https://imgur.com/a/MVUSMqd

DO NOT DEPOSIT ANY CRYPTO OR FIAT IN THIS SCAM EXCHANGE. STAY AWAY. BUYER BEWARE.

Looks like ezBTC is starting to process withdrawals again – the owner was out of the country and has returned and things are starting to get done. SO far my small withdrawal has been processed but not my larger BTC withdrawal

Have been trying to withdraw crypto coins to personal storage wallet transaction is taking more than a month no emails being answered and no phone calls are accepted either through Canadian or international phone lines

Tyler, 2 days ago I finally got my last withdrawals out from ezBTC. Login and check the chat on the Trade page, there has been a lot of action with the CEO doing withdrawals and users confirming they received it. Also, although it’s not technically the support channel, that chatbox seems to be the best way to get his attention. Hope that helps!

All the scam reviews you read are true! I am owned 1536 CAD$ since June 2018 and I kept receiving promises of payouts by Dave and it’s team since then and still no money came in! David Smilie is soon going to jail for all the people he stole from. I have lot of evidences!

Have you contacted him directly about withdrawals? I don’t doubt that ezBTC doesn’t have the funds to pay everyone’s withdrawals, but ?as money comes in? some people are getting paid. See if you can get him on the phone and get some of your withdrawals paid.